


Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Glitter)

by behindbucky



Series: Running through the Back Brain (Welcome to the Future) [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, First Kiss, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Stucky - Freeform, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behindbucky/pseuds/behindbucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter 1938 is one of greying purple cotton candy skies, bent metal bed frames and frost bitten fingers.</p><p>Christmas 2015 begins with colourful, three inch monstrosities floating like Helium balloons from Bucky's ceiling.</p><p>--</p><p>Written for the Stucky Secret Santa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Glitter)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaosy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosy/gifts).



> Written as a gift for roma-nov as part of the Stucky/Thorki Secret Santa on Tumblr 
> 
> I couldn't decide which story I was going to write, so I wrote both.. at once...  
> You could try reading the italics one first and then go back and read the normal font one since I did consider posting them as a series rather than together. 
> 
> (Title adapted from a Hawkwind song I was listening to while I wrote this)

 

_It’s been cold for over a month now. The kind of bone chilling, spine rattling cold that touches the tips of your feet even under the thickness of someone else’s body. Thin bones and angles jutting everywhere; 19 years old and Steve’s still not filled out his own frame. Bucky thinks of long thin frost bitten fingers, so pale they’re almost blue. Thinks of three pairs of socks, each with their own holes, and of scraping together then change for yet another blanket only slightly thicker than the faded, fraying ones they already own, draped over the bent metal bedframe._

_Mid-morning comes and goes, with a wink of sunshine across the greying purple sky. The clouds are moving across the tall rise buildings of Brooklyn, encasing them in a layer of cotton-candy fluff. When Bucky jerks open the window to shake out his shirts, the crystallised air swirls in, catching against his throat._

_There’s snow in Steve’s hair when he falls through the front door an hour or so later, scarf twisting around his ankles where it’s slipped away from his neck. He leans back against the wood, panting slightly._

_“Jeez Stevie, you training for the marathon?” Bucky smirks at him from stove._

_“Very funny Buck. Here, I got us a paper.” He produces a damp newspaper from his bag._

_“Stealing again, are we?”_

_“’s not stealing. Mr Keegan didn’t want his so I borrowed it.”_

_Bucky’s knuckles brush against ice cold marble skin, the hard jawline of Steve’s face._

_“Jerk.”_

_“Punk”_

_Steve’s smile breaks across his face like the touches of spring and Bucky’s fingers itch to touch. To track the flushed pink of exertion to corners of lips and sweep back the unruly hair from wide blue eyes. He can feel Steve’s blood thrumming under his touch and it’s pounding fills Bucky’s ears with an insatiable rushing._

_“Let’s go out tonight” he says._

 

\--

 

The Soldier wakes with a gasp, a forgotten memory of unexpected and uncomfortable. He shudders and shakes out the coldness of snow and cryogenics that nibbles at him from under fingernails and the corners of teeth. He runs his tongue across them and tastes the earthiness of another man’s body still clinging to them, warming and solid. Grinning Bucky shuffles slightly, rearranging the pile of limbs splayed across him. 

 

\--

 

_There’s a girl in Bucky’s hands, her body sticky to touch through fabric that swishes against their knees. He spins her around, lifts slightly, dips, and guides her back up. It’s a set of instructions really, a carefully planned routine not even the best tactician could overcome. In fact, it’s routine, Bucky realises as he twists around another body. He’s not even thinking about the figures pressed up against him, all the wrong shapes in all the wrong places. They’re too close and as he grins at the next blond that’s thrust into his arms by giggling friends he feels the skin around his mouth and eyes contort with the effort of stretching. It’s going to split him open someday, all these false smiles._

_Across the room Bucky can see Steve’s blond hair and stubborn shoulders, hunched over a glass. Bucky laughs quietly because dear god what he wouldn’t do to go over and make him happy. The girl he’s holding blinks her eyes and leans a little closer. Bucky stares and stares until Steve looks up and catches his eye, cold blue catches the breath in Bucky’s throat and he stumbles slightly, breaking the routine._

_“’s’cuse me.” He mutters, weaving through the throng of people all moving together. He’s out of time and out of place and suddenly it’s hard to move forward without being pushed back into the dance._

_Steve is still nursing the same drink when Bucky finally breaks through the mass of people. He picks the glass up and swallows the rest, tugging Steve out of his seat._

_“C’mon let’s go somewhere else.”_

_It’s snowing again outside and Bucky pulls his Jacket up over both their heads. Steve’s hands are like ice as they attempt to shove Bucky away._

_“Get off Buck. I’m not some dame you’re taking home.”_

_The press of Steve’s body up against Bucky is like cold fire. Inside Bucky’s stomach worms begin to scramble and prick at his nerves._

_\--_

When Bucky next wakes it is because Steve’s nudging him gently. There’s a warm hand clamped firmly over his mouth. He considers both screaming because this is a horrifyingly familiar situation and/or replacing the hand with something else more interesting. That is, until he notices Steve’s stunned gaze, which is fixed on a collection of Elves bobbing two feet from the ceiling. 

 

The brightly coloured, three inch monstrosities are suspended like helium balloons. Some lie on their backs; others have assumed a mushroom like position and are crouched in mid-air. It’s almost like they’re falling, very, very, slowly – except that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

 

Steve presses two fingers against Bucky’s thigh and Bucky nods. Tentatively Steve stretches across the bed to where his shield is propped up and Bucky’s own hand creeps under the pillow for his weapon. Their eyes never leave the things on the ceiling.

 

         

          **Avengers Offensive Manual (Compiled by Capt. S. Rogers; stolen by T. Stark; stolen back by B. Barnes, shortly lost to 'The Never Ending Draw of Stuff'.)  
**

**__**

 

Steve slides off the bed and strides forward to where the clump hang, firmly looking one of the lower elves in the eye. 

 

Bucky, behind him, unclicks the safely catch on his gun, finger covering the trigger.

 

Steve reaches out and flicks the elf, who until now has been motionless. Suddenly there’s a flurry of movement. The small orange creature’s ears flick, eyes focus and its mouth flies open. It lets out a high pitch shrieking noise and grabs at Steve’s hand, biting it sharply. 

 

Bucky fires.

 

The elf spins backward against the wall and explodes in a shower of glitter.

 

Steve stares at the sparkly mess on the carpet.

 

Bucky stares at the gun.

 

The other elves remain motionless.

 

_“Glitter?”_

“Empty?”

 

“Glitter?”

 

“Cap why is my gun empty?”

 

Steve flushes pink. “Oh, I, uh, didn’t think what we… that we were, uh, …that last night probably wasn’t safe with live rounds…”

 

“And you didn’t think to replace them?”

 

“I think it’s fair to say I was a little pre-occupied.”

Bucky smirks slightly as he turns to the elf remains on the floor. He thinks it looks a little like a children’s party has spontaneously combusted across their bedroom. Well, they had meant to redecorate sometime.

 

“Stevie?”

 

“Yes dear?”

 

“Why are there homosexual elves hanging in our house?”

 

“You know what Buck? I really don’t know.”

 

\--

 

_Normally Brooklyn turns to a deathly slush the moment December arrives, each trip outside becoming a life or death situation. It soaks into socks and ruins boots. This year, however, a thin ice covers the back alleyways and as Steve and Bucky trudge behind the dance hall the road becomes increasingly slippery._

_They’re both wearing thin-soled, second-hand shoes smart enough for Sundays and dancing and Bucky, in a moment of bravado pushes himself away from Steve, skidding three feet down the road. Steve shakes his head, but he is smiling and when Bucky laughs it is loud and unprompted._

_“Dance with me?” Bucky asks, brash and cocky affection filling his voice. But inside the ground has fallen away and he is left drifting in a pocket of time ready to fall or to fly._

_“Don’t be silly.” Steve shuffles past Bucky’s outstretched arm, but Bucky pulls him in by the waist, spinning him in an arch._

_“C’mon Stevie, dance with me.”_

_\--_

Somewhere in the back of a cupboard Steve has found a balloon pump. It’s a fittingly luminous yellow. Bucky stands in full stealth uniform, wielding the foot-long instrument of destruction and winks. He looks fabulous.

 

Steve, using the shield as a cricket bat, hits the small creatures in Bucky’s direction, where they are ‘puffed’ and promptly explode in a shower of shimmering dust.

 

\--

 

_Steve protest at Bucky’s grasp, batting at his arm, but Bucky holds on tight. He slides them back, then to the left and forward again, guiding their bodies in languid half circles, entirely out of time with the music drifting out from the hall. It’s all just a set of instructions, but this time, Bucky realises, he’s making the rules. He pulls Steve closer and spins them on the slippery asphalt one last time._

_As they slide to a halt Bucky’s body is presses tight to Steve's. Too tight. The world has gone still and silent. Bucky’s breath won’t form and Steve’s eyes peer up at him, daring him. Red lips part infinitesimally and blow cold air across Bucky’s jaw. It billows like smoke from a dragon in the night air._

_Bucky kisses him._

_Lips dry, almost non existent, against lips. Paper thin, sweetened with alcohol._

_Bucky’s whole being is burning, and then it is over and he falling and flying simultaneously._

_“Happy Christmas Buck.”_

 

\--

 

“Stevie?”

 

Steve looks up from sweeping the floor

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Happy Christmas.”

 

The balloon pump hits Bucky in the arm.

 

“Jerk.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr
> 
> Thanks for reading, any feedback is much appreciated :)
> 
> (Happy Christmas Roma-nov I hope this is alright?? (You asked for a mission fic and I gave you glittery elves..?!)) x


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